If Wall Street is a struggle between fear and greed, both sides seemed plenty crowded this past week. The fearful, eyeing political turmoil and deep fiscal woes in Greece, snapped up year Treasury notes with yields as low as 1. Never mind that the latest reading on inflation was 2. The price, even without a big first-day jump, will require some growing into.

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Between extremes like these, there remain some sweet spots in the markets. Here is where to find them. Big dividend payers like utilities and telecoms have gotten expensive, says chief investment officer at U. Better to favor companies with strong "free cash flow" -- surplus funds that can be spent in coming years on dividend increases, stock buybacks or growth. Look for such companies in two industries in particular: Watch out for companies that pay generous dividends but also raise cash by repeatedly issuing new shares, says chief U.

Investors should avoid companies that consistently do more of the former than the latter. The utilities sector, for example, has a meaty 4. But utilities have lately issued more shares than they have repurchased, so the sector's total payout yield dividend payments plus buybacks, minus issuance is 3.

The consumer-discretionary sector has a dividend yield of just 1. Golub's team supplied a list of stocks with high total payout yields and "buy" recommendations from UBS analysts. It includes BLK, They likely are good values, but at the same time, their low bond yields suggest they are financially strong.

Falling Treasury yields have dragged down yields on other high-quality bonds. Among these are municipal bonds, which are issued by states, local governments and their agencies, and whose income is often tax-free. Individual bond buyers can look for small blocks of high-yield bonds, but high commissions on such trades sometimes can offset the extra yield, Mr.

DeClue agrees that high-yield munis are relatively inexpensive for investors who don't mind the risk, and recommends investing in them through mutual funds for diversification and lower fees.

The fund invests the bulk of its money in A and triple-B munis, as well as unrated munis -- ones whose credit-worthiness buyers must judge on their own. As for corporate bonds, yields are low for top-quality companies and even at the higher-quality end of the junk-bond market, to which investors have recently flocked, says retired chief executive of Nomura Corporate Research and Asset Management and author of "How to Make Money With Junk Bonds".

The best junk values, Mr. Levine says, fall in a part of the stock market eye license key where most investors don't belong: There are far safer ways for bond investors to get better returns than Treasurys offer.

Emerging-market bonds, from countries like Turkey, Brazil 60 second binary option ebook crash the Philippines, have sold off in recent days, but in general are benefiting from credit upgrades as these economies improve.

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One exchange-traded fund composed of such bonds, EMB, Timmer also likes floating-rate bank debt, or business loans that have been sold by banks and trade as securities.

These loans, like corporate bonds, come with the risk that companies will fall into financial difficulty and won't be able to pay, but they often are barron where the stock market bargains are by collateral that can be sold off in such an event. Unlike bonds, the income they pay rises if interest rates broadly rise. By using this site you agree to the Terms of ServicePrivacy Policyand Cookie Policy.

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